


Bonnie

by imaginary_iby



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, cute guys and an adorable golden retriever puppy, it should really be a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_iby/pseuds/imaginary_iby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a crash from upstairs, the sound of porcelain splitting into a million pieces.  Tiny paws scuff across the hardwood floor, leaving scratches - as well as vacating the crime scene - and Steve sighs.  Danny <i>really</i> can’t get home soon enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonnie

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [THIS](http://38.media.tumblr.com/50974936ddfc66fd4f625ca0ced94b26/tumblr_n96nhqb15y1sn75h6o1_500.jpg) picture. I had no writing plans - then I scrolled upon that and my heart was lost.

The Dog has a name. Betty, or Billie-Jean, or something equally as likely to be painted on the nose of a 1940s biplane. It doesn’t matter, really, because whatever that name is, Steve won’t use it. He’s holding out hope that as long as he calls her The Dog, she won’t be living under his roof for much longer. No more sleeping at the end of his bed, getting her fur and her slobber and her doggy breath all over his nice clean sheets.

So far, Danny’s been pretty immune to Steve’s passive-aggressive rejection of their new four-legged friend. Danny scratches behind her ears at the dinner table, he calls her onto the couch for a cuddle - _right_ when Steve is trying to put the moves on him - and it’s not that Steve’s jealous? It’s just that the dog has to go.

Danny announcing that he’s needed in Jersey for a week, and that Steve is in charge of The Dog’s continued care and maintenance, is the exact opposite of Steve’s plan. It’s the exact opposite of all plans, everywhere, and if the dejected way The Dog trails after Danny as he packs is any indication, then she senses that her best friend is leaving. And she isn’t happy about it. 

“Sweetheart, you’re getting hair all over my clothes.” Danny says this – nay, coos it – when the dog actually crawls into his suitcase, and Steve is seriously wondering where the bastard he fell in love with has gone. 

“Danny, she’s slobbering all over your tie.”

Steve has spent entire nights on the couch, for causing injury to Danny’s ties. And yet, The Dog just gets a gentle pat on the rump. “You’re going to miss me, aren’t you? Yes you are, yes you are.”

The Dog whines, a pathetic pained noise, and turns her big round eyes to Steve, but oh no, Steve isn’t having any of it. “Out of the suitcase. C’mon. Suitcases aren’t for dogs.” Steve has made the most hardened of criminals obey his command, but The Dog ignores him.

“Steve’s right, Bonnie.” - _Bonnie,_ that’s right – no, no, _Dog, The Dog._ – “I need to put my clothes in there. Out you hop.”

Any satisfaction that Steve felt at being declared right, evaporates when The Dog immediately follows Danny’s order. This makes Danny beam happily, and love her even more, thus derailing Steve’s hopes that she’ll be an uncooperative pain in the ass and get handed off to one of Gracie’s classmates.

By the time Danny finishes packing, there’s only time for a quick lunch before they have to head to the airport. Steve tries not to sigh as Danny says an effusive goodbye to The Dog, but it’s a near thing. Traffic is tangled, as usual, and Steve’s mood isn’t helped by the fact that Danny’s so late, they only have time for a quick kiss before he’s running through the gate. 

The house is dark and quiet as Steve pulls into the drive. Not so long ago, Steve was perfectly used to distance and solitude; now the house keys jangle in his hand, the noise cutting clear through the night air, and a spark of sadness soon follows. Danny can’t get home soon enough.

Not that Steve’s alone, anyway – a fact that he’s reminded of when there’s a crash from upstairs, the sound of fine china splitting into a million pieces. Tiny paws scuff across the hardwood floor – leaving scratches, as well as vacating the crime scene - and Steve sighs. Danny _really_ can’t get home soon enough.

-

The Dog is nothing if not an enthusiastic eater. In the time it takes for Steve to get out of bed and leave for work, she’s usually managed to put away her own bowl of kibble, steal half of Danny’s breakfast when he’s not looking, and splash water all over the kitchen floor. 

So when a call comes in early for a case, Steve shoots her a stern, “Don’t break anything,” before he’s out the door, and it doesn’t occur to him until the afternoon that the last he saw of her, she was sitting glumly beside her still full food-bowl. 

“Dammit,” he growls, as he slaps the steering wheel and makes a sharp left. This was just what he was hoping to avoid – problems. Canine problems.

Problem number two makes itself known as soon as he gets home: Bonnie is nowhere to be seen. Shit. He can’t have lost her already, not in the first twenty-four hours. The doors and windows to the lanai are shut tight, which is _something_ – The Dog has the good fortune of being the only golden retriever on the planet to have no natural swimming instincts – so at least Steve is sure she’s in the house. Somewhere.

A quick scan of the kitchen reveals nothing more than an ignored bowl of food, and Steve wouldn’t have even noticed her in the bedroom, if not for the fluffy golden tail poking out from beneath Danny’s pillow. She whimpers when Steve lifts it up, and he doesn’t feel the urge to scratch her behind the ears to cheer her up. Really, he doesn’t.

“Off the bed,” he says, somewhat softer than usual. “Off. I’m not indulging this puppy-sulking."

Great. And how he’s talking to her like a child. She must know that she’s got no back-up, what with Danny not around, because she huffs and flops to the floor, puppy-paws wobbling as she rights herself.

No amount of coaxing gets The Dog to eat her kibble, and Steve heads back to work trying to convince himself that one day without food is not the end of the world. She ignores her dinner, ears droopy and tail still, and Steve fights down a flare of worry – the animal imperative to eat will kick in soon, and then the problem will be solved.

-

It’s not. Breakfast number two is ignored, kibble and jelly-meats cast aside, and Steve tries to tell himself that he only cooks sausages and eggs because he’s hungry, but he knows deep down that it’s to tempt her into eating. 

“This is a one-time thing, okay?” It goes against the grain, giving in. Sets a bad precedent. But her little tail swishes with more life than he’s seen since Danny left, and she licks at the sausage with interest, before finally accepting.

Giving in is maybe, _maybe_ worth it, for the way she nuzzles against his knee in thanks. Not that he’d ever admit it. 

By the time Steve gets back from work that night, her food bowl is empty, and she happily gobbles down her kibble-dinner before disappearing upstairs. Steve isn’t really one for out-of-sight/out-of-mind, but he puts on his board shorts, heads outside, (making sure to shut and wedge the door) and just hopes that whatever she’s inevitably breaking, it isn’t too valuable.

Sleep comes quickly, after the fun and games that is trying to screw the bathroom cabinet doors back on – he doesn’t even know how she’d managed that one, but her guilty look from under the couch had told him all that he needed to know. It’s not a good sleep, though, and certainly not a deep one. The other side of the bed feels empty and cold, and Steve smiles when Danny finally comes to bed, shifting around, warm and comfortable and…

Wait. What?

The Dog is curled up by his side, licking his face. 

“Hey! Get off!” Steve ignores her happy yelp, scooping his arms around her belly and putting her decisively on the floor. Undeterred, she wags her tail, looking up at him through the dim morning light.

“No, Bonnie!” Steve figures it’s like a tree falling in an abandoned forest – if Danny isn’t there to hear it, then Steve saying her name doesn’t really count. 

Her tail continues to wag, front paws getting lost in the voluminous drape of sheets that hang over the side of the bed. Eventually she gets her nails dug in, and hauls herself back onto the bed. 

“You have a dog bed, you know.”

She yips again, as though Steve is being an idiot, but she concedes Danny’s pillow for the empty space at the foot of the bed. Around and around she circles, chasing her tail, before she curls into a tiny ball, snorts indelicately, and falls fast asleep.

Steve decides to take it as a win.

Waking, the second time, is even less pleasant than the first, and Steve’s woken to his fair share of angry commanding officers with air horns. Bonnie lets out an anguished yelp of pain, and Steve tangles his feet in the sheets in his haste to track her down. She must’ve left the bed at some point, pushing her way into the bathroom – the floor is covered in shards of glass, speckles of blood leading to where she cowers in the corner of the room, front paw held up pathetically.

“Oh Bonnie,” he says softly, toeing his way into his slippers, crunching across the room. She all but puddles in his arms, and he has to scoop her into the crook of his elbow like a football as he roots around the drawer for some cotton wipes and betadine.

“Some SEAL you are,” he says, when she finally consents to sitting on the couch for long enough to let him treat the wound. “It’s a tiny scratch, you baby.”

Her face is so little, golden and ruffly, and it hits him then that she really is a baby, a tiny puppy that Danny rescued, brought home and loves with all of that big stupid heart that lives on his sleeve.

“You’re still not getting any more sausages for breakfast.”

Turns out, Bonnie gets something even better. She scores her very own ride-along to work, sitting in the front seat as the beach zips by. She wouldn’t stop licking her paw, and Steve might not know much about canine health, but he does know that she needs to leave the wound – the scratch, really – alone. There is just no way, _no way,_ that he’s letting Danny come home to a dog with one of those stupid cones on its head, so the only solution Steve can come up with is to bring her with him to HQ, where he can keep an eye on her.

She bounds up the Palace steps, skitters between the legs of the security guard manning the door, and makes for the Five-0 offices with puppyish enthusiasm. By the time Steve catches up, she’s happily curled up on Kono’s lap, Chin inspecting her paw and making all sorts of consoling noises. 

“Traitor,” Steve accuses, settling at his desk; but he feels her curl up on his feet not long after. 

Bonnie is surprisingly well-behaved for the rest of the day, especially considering she’s in an office that’s almost entirely glass, technology, and bullets. She barks – a fledgling bark, she hasn’t quite mastered the art yet – when Chin jokes that a misbehaving dog is just the dog that Steve deserves, but other than that, she’s quiet as a mouse.

Dinner is chops, grilled out on the lanai, rounded off by a call from Danny. Steve’s happy to hear his voice, and he settles back into his chair, ready to let whatever rant that Danny’s been storing up wash over him. He _hhmms_ and _ahhhs_ in all the right places, and it’s not that he’s not listening, it’s just that he’s tired and comfortable. 

His lids are at half-mast when he spots her, sneaking out of the bushes, belly dragging along the sand as she tries to – Steve can only assume – sneak up on the ocean and pounce it into submission. A wave rolls over her, and whatever hitherto nonexistent courage she’s cobbled together quickly leaves her. A now-familiar panicky yip sounds out, and Steve digs his beer into the sand, shucks his cargoes and shirt, and pads down to where she’s managing to flail around in half a foot of water. She’s sodden, fur stained dark with water, and she rolls onto her back like she’s no longer subject to the earth’s gravity. Four paws windmill through the air, and Steve sighs.

“This is most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. All right, you asked for it.” He picks her up, powers straight into the water, and lets her go. Not far, he keeps his hands on either side of her belly, bringing her back up whenever she starts to sink. Maybe SEAL training has made him a bit of a bastard when it comes to swimming lessons, but he’s pretty sure this is the most effective method. Sure enough, her legs get their act together, and she starts to maintain a wobbly but effective doggy paddle. 

It takes about ten minutes for Steve to realize that he’s created a monster. Bonnie has no intention whatsoever of returning to land any time soon, and he’s half worried that she’ll try to swim to Maui if left alone. “Food!” he calls. “Dinner!” For this, he’ll sacrifice a leftover chop or two.

Sure enough, she points her nose towards home and lets her legs do the rest. It’s not until she’s _right_ next to the food that she pauses thoughtfully, rests her weight to one side, and begins to shake herself dry. Doggy water splashes over everything, over Steve, over the leftovers, over the damn salad, and Steve figures that he has nobody to blame but himself.

As soon as he starts to get ready for bed, Bonnie’s paw magically starts to hurt again, and she trails after him pathetically, whining for sympathy. Steve doesn’t know how the hell it happens, but he can feel himself fold, one damn card at a time, until the whole house has gone down. 

“Fine. Fine!” he says, as though he’s spent hours knee-deep in a battle of wills. Maybe he has. “Up you get. This is just for tonight, while your paw hurts.”

It’s not, and Steve knows it.

Which is why, when Danny comes home a night early, Steve blinks his eyes open to a sleeping Bonnie and an amused partner.

“Well,” Danny says, and Steve nudges Bonnie with his toe, as though he’s been caught in the act of being kind to The Dog and wishes to disavow all knowledge.

“Yes?” Steve asks, projecting indifference.

“Nothing. I just wasn’t expecting to find you two getting along.”

Bonnie shifts, curling herself more securely – even protectively – over Steve’s feet, and he figures it’s not even worth the effort of lying.

“We got along…okay,” he says, slowly, which is exactly the moment that Bonnie chooses to wake up, notice Danny, and completely lose her mind. She flings off the bed, straight into Danny’s belly, and tries to scrabble her way up to lick his face. 

Steve absolutely doesn’t feel jealous. It’s just annoying that the guy he was planning on kissing, quite thoroughly, is now covered in dog-saliva. “Yeah - you? Need to wash that off, before I say hello.”

Danny rolls his eyes, but dutifully makes his way into the bathroom, and it’s not until the light flicks on that Steve notices the heavy scruff smudged across his cheeks and jaw. “And shave that off, while you’re at it! How are you supposed to give me a blow-job when your face is a lethal weapon?”

Danny scoffs, a happy noise, _exactly_ what Steve was angling for. Once Danny’s showered, Steve ambles up to stand behind him, luxuriating in the knowledge that Danny is keeping the beard just to be a shit. “On second thought,” he says, nosing down Danny’s neck, lips dragging against the grain, “I kind of like it.”

Danny catches his eye in the mirror, grinning, grinning a grin so bright that Steve really has no choice but to turn him around, kiss him, and drag him to bed.

Tripping over the dog on the way, is not part of the plan. 

“Bonnie,” Steve groans, and he absolutely refuses to be swayed by her big eyes and swishy tail. “C’mon, out, out.”

“Bonnie?” Danny asks, commanding her attention. “Dog bed.” He points at the door, and she trots dutifully out onto the landing and down the stairs.

“You have _got_ to teach me your ways,” Steve says, before bumping the door shut with his hip. 

“I’ve got better things to teach.” Danny rubs his hands together, before sticking one down the front of Steve’s boxers.

“Lame,” Steve manages. “Your dirty talk is so, oh, _god,”_ and that’s all Steve’s got to say about that.

Thirty minutes later, he may be dead to the world, but Bonnie’s sad whining is loud enough to wake him from even the deepest of sleep. Her nails scuff at the door, and she’s obviously not content with her dog bed. 

Danny groans sleepily, rubbing at his face.

Steve sighs. “Put your pants on.”

“Huh?”

“Put your pants on. I’ve got to get the dog. Bonnie,” he adds, when Danny gurgles some more. “I’ve got to get Bonnie.”

He struggles into clean boxers, navigating the mess of clothes on the floor, and cracks the door open enough for their tiny puppy to skitter through the gap and launch onto the bed. 

“Yeah yeah,” Steve says, when she yelps happily. “You little traitor. Danny comes home and suddenly I’m dead to you?”

Steve can only hope that Danny’s fallen asleep again, and can’t hear this conversation. It’s not likely, given Steve’s luck with these things. He slides into bed, drags Danny tight into the curve of his body, and proceeds to squeeze his eyes shut. Just as he’s drifting in that hazy pre-sleep space, he feels a nose nuzzle against the back of his knee.

“Night, Bonnie,” he murmurs, and she yips quietly in return.


End file.
